1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to geolocalization and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for inferring the geographic location of scenes in captured scene depictions using geo-referenced data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Determining the geographic location of scenes in captured depictions (here “depiction” is used inclusively for electronic data that represents the contents of a scene, regardless of medium, including photographs and other still images, video sequences, drawings, and/or textual descriptions of the contents of a scene for example), is referred to as geolocalization of content. Traditional approaches for geolocalization rely on expressly encoded location data (e.g., metadata), that is either embedded within the depiction itself or associated with it, such as global positioning system (GPS) coordinates and the like. If such metadata is not available, geolocalization of a depiction such as an image is a challenging problem.
The location of an aerial or satellite image is sometimes determined by comparing the image to an existing geo-referenced database of satellite images and selecting a statistically matched item as the result. However, such image comparisons do not account for angle discrepancies, for example, where the images in the database are top-view or aerial imagery, and the images required to be geolocalized consist of narrow field of view ground plane images such as tourist images in an urban or suburban environment. Thus, with two or three multiple coordinate systems and angles of view, performing image comparisons becomes computationally challenging.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for geolocalizing scene depictions such as images and, more particularly, a method and apparatus for inferring the geographic location of captured depictions using geo-referenced data captured from a different perspective.